


Here There Be Tygers (sad poetry remix)

by kalliel



Series: Here There Be Tygers [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Anterograde Amnesia, Brother Feels, Curtain Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, POV Sam Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:52:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalliel/pseuds/kalliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not Hell, Hell-that-knows-no-end Hell, but it's a hell without a beginning and maybe that's just as bad.  Sam is, after all, the Boy King, Prince of Hell, Ruler of the Demon Hordes, and whatever else.  Maybe his majesty is just annexing new territories.</p><p>S3 divergent timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here There Be Tygers (sad poetry remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Here There Be Tygers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300215) by [kalliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalliel/pseuds/kalliel). 



Life is very short, Sam is very tall, and Florida is a very funky state.

 

\--

 

 **147.** Every morning when Sam wakes up, he stares at the tiger on the ceiling. It's up there with the moldy-looking splotches Sam assumes are stars, with the cloud stains and the dust that rains down when the house settles. The sky--if that's what it's supposed to be--or the tiger--because that's what it _looks_ like--is caught in the gruesome somewhere between peeling skin and a house just needing a paint job. 

The ceiling is a lighter color underneath, and as the humidity makes the cheap paint curl and sag, it makes tiger stripes.

 "Dude, it's not a tiger."

It's a tiger. Sam wiggles free of his sheets and into his shoes bonelessly--a series of hydrostatic compressions. He ties his laces, and he looks at Dean. Dean is still pretending.

Every morning when Dean wakes up, he complains about the "fucking flamingoes, those aren't even jungle animals" adorning the wall nearest his bed. And, once Sam has assured Dean that no, Sammy didn't die of a bitchface in the night, and no he's not sleeping with his peepers open, and _yes_ the ceiling is that interesting, Dean tells Sammy to turn the alarm off. 

Every morning, Sam doesn't, and Dean doesn't, and the band plays on. 

Every morning, Dean looks for his shirt and doesn't find it. Then his jacket, to the same degree of success.

Sam shrugs his own jacket on.

"Where are you going?" Dean asks.

"Work."

"Oh." Then, after a moment, he says, "And we're working the job where...?"

"Same job, Dean," Sam says, and unlocks the door. " _I'm_ working the same job. And you're staying put in the same house."

"What?"

Sam runs a hand through his hair, already limp and frazzled at the edges. Mentally, he kicks himself. He didn't mean it like, well. Like _that._ "Just sit tight, okay? I got you."

 

\--

 

If there is a soundtrack to Sam's life, it lasts four minutes and twenty-three seconds. The radio edit is a bit shorter, but that one never gets played; Dean made sure of that. 

 "You better start sleeping with some producers, Sammy," is Dean's only response. "Because I ain't going to Hell for anything less than multi-platinum."

 

\--

 

 **148.** Every morning, Sam explains that he is staring at the tiger on the ceiling. Those stains, and that mold, and the-- There are _stripes,_ okay?

"Dude, it's not a tiger."

It's a tiger.

 

"--And flamingoes aren't even fucking jungle animals."

 

"Turn that off, will you, Sammy?"

 

"Sam, where are you going?"

 

Sam double checks his shoelaces, as is habit. They're already loose, as usual. These sneakers probably shouldn't still exist. He'd had no use for them hunting, so they'd slept at the back of the trunk for a good three years now. And honestly, he'd barely had use for them walking to class every day, they're that rattastic. But he figured if they were really gonna survive this, _some_ thing had to come out of retirement. 

 "What job are you working?"

Same job. Same job every day, Dean. Today is Wednesday. Next week, it will be Wednesday again. We'll still be doing the same damn thing.

"Sam--" Dean bars his way, with an expression of mounting confusion that is so unlike Sam's brother it becomes a visceral hurt. (Like skin 

sloughing off. Sam looks to the ceiling and away from Dean.)

"Where are we?"

"This is our house, Dean."

Since when? Dean does or does not ask. He lets Sam push past, out to the living-space-kitchen-all-in-one room of what Sam knows Dean cannot possibly believe is their house.

"Oh, come on," Dean says, when he yanks back the curtains. The view beyond them is unhelpful, just more plaster facade a few feet away and a murky alley some floors down.

"Florida," Sam supplies.

"Polar bears," Dean shoots back.

And Sam honestly doesn't know how to respond to that. "--Don't live in Florida, and neither do we?" Sam guesses. 

Dean glares at him, as though holding him personally responsible for his own insanity. "--Aren't jungle animals, either." He drapes the curtains across his body, for Sam to see. They're malleable in the morning sunlight, plasticky, are probably a shower curtain snipped in half, and there are indeed polar bears on them. 

"Well, don't look at me. I didn't choose them."

Sam watches as Dean wipes his fingers down his shirt, and his heat-clammy forehead against his sleeve. He shoves the window open briefly, but it's worse outside. Everything is worse when Dean looks outside.

Dean looks again anyway. Same wall. Same neighbors, same alley, same apartment, same Florida. 

"Sammy," he says shakily. Then he takes a few seconds to get over himself. "Sam, where are we?"

 

\--

 

Life is very short. But maybe-just-maybe, Sam thinks, he can make it as long as a sunken-in sofa. As long as all the magazines in the box he's using as their coffee table. As long as the shower curtain at their window. As long as the quick, unencumbered drop to the slice of pavement below.

The haphazard turn of a page draws Sam back inside.

"What are you writing?"

"Sad poetry, Sam. Go away."

 

\--

 

 **155.** Sometimes, Sam is too distracted to tie his shoes right off. He pulls on his jeans anyway, which are uncomfortably damp--victims of the humidity. As he jerks the heavy fabric over his ass and up to his waist, he insists: It's a tiger. There are so many other surprises their ceiling could have given them (burning skin; white dress smoking, like sugar over fire; the black remains) Sam's happy that's all it is, and Dean should be too.

Dean is silent.

Sam looks up to him.

Dean is waiting. "Seriously," Dean says, and returns to sit at the edge of his bed. "What's up with you?"

Sam jumps toward the bathroom and thanks God that the lock still works. "Sam," Dean pounds, one and a half inches of wood away and one hundred and fifty-five days behind. "Sammy--"

Sam unzips his fly and struggles with his pants again. Hates the weather for sucking. Hates Dean for being the way he is. Hates himself for hating either of those things because honestly, they are not the problem. Not really. He tries to pee as loudly as he can in the hopes that Dean will get the message, and feels twelve years old. He tries to draft what he's goa tell Dean in about a minute, because he's an adult, an intelligent adult. He feels about four.

"Dean," he says to the face in the mirror, who is not Dean. He could throw around elaborate buzzwords like "anterograde amnesia," but that eventually boils down to "shit went down." And that, Sam refines to "I fucked up."

"This isn't your fault." Dean's response is automatic. It's been automatic since Day One, one hundred fifty-five of Sam's most succinct explanations earlier. For all Sam knows, it's been automatic since the day Sam was born. Sam doesn't know why he bothers with the bathroom dress rehsearsal. He drops back to his bed and tries to deal with his shoes again.

"Been saying this all year," Dean continues. "It's not your--"

"You can't even remember half of last year," Sam snaps. "How the hell--"

"I'm sorry."

"Shut up."

"Look, I don't know-- I just. I am, okay?"

He is. Which makes Sam want to--he doesn't even know. Tear Dean in half, maybe. Something ridiculous and testosterone-driven and befitting of the laws of the jungle painted around them.

"Sammy," Dean says. He has Sam's fist in his hand, clammy and hot like Sam's own. His fingers work to pry Sam's open, and a bit of shoelace drops from between them. "Are you--"

"Okay--I'm okay." Sam is as okay as he's ever gonna get. Because the problem with Dean's memory is, it means he asks that question about eight trillion times more. And as far as Sam's concerned, the answer matters even less. The problem with Dean's life is, it's supposed to end this year. And the problem with Dean's brother, well. Sam's still working on that one.

 

\--

 

The tiger on Sam's ceiling is red in tooth and claw, or whatever phrase it was that haunted Sam for months after Jess burned. She'd had a midterm--English Literature 10B. Her last gen. ed. requirement, the one she'd been putting off. He can't remember the poem any more.

"'Cause it wasn't a poem," says Dean, when asked. "It was that _Shadowmen_ comic. Last year."

Sam has no idea what Dean's talking about, but he welcomes the novelty of that. These days, Sam could probably build his brother out of taglines and snappy 'witticisms' without even having to write anything down. "It's been a long year," he says.

"Polar bears," says Dean, fifteen minutes later. Right on schedule.

 

\--

 

 **189.** Some days, when Sam loses the distinction between gentleness and apathy, he lets Dean free-fall. He understands that this is cruel. But, Sam thinks, the distinction between love and cruelty is not one any of their family has mastered. All the same it's an unusual brand of violence, letting Dean wander all 685 square feet of what is apparently his home. Sam can see the way it tests him, as the confusion swells in his throat, the cold distress tearing across the tendons in his neck like a laciniate monster.

 

(It's not that bad, Sam says.

There's a fucking hippo painted on the wall.

It's a house, Sam insists. A place to live. How can that be bad?

And Dean says, Have you met us?)

 

Some days, Sam honestly doesn't know if it's domesticity or senility that Dean's afraid of. Their house is a couple tuna casseroles short of domestic bliss, and senility is an equal stretch, but Sam is kind enough to forgo arguing Dean out of either claim. Sam is tired enough to forgo arguing Dean out of either claim. Sam is still staring at the ceiling that is definitely a tiger when Dean returns to the bedroom to upset more furniture.

Maybe he's looking for something. The life that funneled ever-inward, maybe. Sam figures Dean's had at least a hundred mornings where he's woken up without a damn clue where he was; a good portion of these were probably in homes a lot like these. Minus the decor, of course--but hadn't Dean just copped to bendy Lisa? And it's not like Sam's working off complete speculation. (Some of Sam's favorite wake-up conversations so far have begun "How much did I drink last night?" and "Did I take anything?") 

Of course, that still left nine thousand other mornings, which had Dean waking, briefly. Closing his eyes again as he rolled onto his stomach, felt sharp iron under his pillow. Took stock of his body, the silence of the room. The sorts of precautionary rituals that keep Dean from spinning out before nine am ("Sam. Sammy. _Where are we._ Where are--"). The things that make Dean safe.

Sam sees them for what they really are, of course; protracted burial rites. Because no one sleeps with a knife in their bed and a gun within kissing distance without expecting that one night, he will need to use them. No one looks at a soul and thinks about its Sell By date, unless. Well, _unless._

"Dean," Sam says, but he never gets further.

 

\---

 

 **207.** Today, when Sam explains "Florida" and "forever" and "yes, for real" Dean's panic is so thick and so large that he cannot breathe around it. 

Aside from the intervening four thousand nine hundred and forty seven hours, the only thing Sam finds missing in Dean's life is the promise of death. (And he'd like to note, if Dean can't remember those hours then he can't miss them. And Sam remembers every one-- _he's_ not keen on keeping any of them.)

The average lifespan of a hunter rounds itself out somewhere between twenty-four and forty-seven years, plus or minus a few outliers--infants, usually. That life, in its finest, most idealized progression, tapers to a fine point. Then the hunter vanishes in a sea of fire, plague, blood, sulfur. And it's done. That's the price you pay for heroism.

Today, Sam is in a bedroom and not a battlefield, and he cannot save the day, and so he sits with Dean, unmoving. He wavers in the riptide of Dean's very private panic. Because what the hell can Sam offer at this juncture? 

A hand to hold? 

A cup of water? 

A joke about flamingoes? 

Things that aren't worth shit.

 

"I fucked up," he says, and it feels like the world is expanding outward, beyond the things Sam knows, or can pretend to know, aspire to know--into whitespace. He touches the tips of his fingers to Dean's back and says too quietly, "Breathe."

"Fuck you," Dean growls, but grabs the hand Sam offers, asks for a drink (water? Sam asks, and Dean Looks at him), then hisses something unintelligible about flamingoes.

(Is this still a joke to you?)

 

Above them, Sam's tiger leers at them. And Sam imagines that whatever Dean wakes up to, it's a lot like whitespace bleeding out. Instead of a tiger, it's an ever-widening prison of cracks and peels and growing stains and hollow unknowns. The days pass; Sam remembers; Dean does not; and the white presses outward. It's not Hell, Hell-that-knows-no-end Hell, but it's a hell without a beginning and maybe that's just as bad. Maybe it's worse. Sam is, after all, the Boy King, Prince of Hell, Ruler of the Demon Hordes, and whatever else. Maybe his majesty is just annexing new territories.

 

\--

 

In his lifetime, Sam has lived a few days outside of the valley of the shadow of death. More specifically, eight thousand and seventy-two. These are the days that should matter most, Sam knows. That's life. That's sacred. Even if it's nothing more impressive than an eternity of:

"Dude, it's not a tiger."

It is a tiger. And flamingoes aren't jungle animals, zebras are reactionary, antelopes are missionaries, and undoubtedly a slough of other factoids, if only the radio hadn't interrupted. But then, the radio is playing Sam's life soundtrack. According to Dean, Simon and Garfunkel will survive the snub.

"You're their only living audience, you know? They'll wait for you, Sammy. They're desperate."

 

Eight thousand and seventy-two. Compared to that, death is a drop in the bucket. It shouldn't change anything.

"Sam--"

Sam hears Dean take a shuddering breath, exhale through pursed lips.

"Sam--"

"Sammy, what's up with you?"

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose until he's half-certain he leaves bruises. Dabs at the edge of his eyes, like he's brushing away an irritating piece of dust. "Nothin'I'mgood," he says. His nose throbs and his eyes feel hot.

"Right," Dean says.

 

\--

 

 **209.** Sam ties his laces out of habit. He hasn't even pretended to leave the house in months. They still don't own any food, though occasionally Dean will placate himself with the thin gray burritos sold by the vending machines in the parking garage. They have failed, in all possible ways, to make this home.

"Florida."

"Florida." Dean chokes on the word, something swollen and writhingly humid in itself.

"Florida," Sam repeats. Cold sweat trickles down the small of Sam's back. "This is our house."

"Our h--" Dean says, voice taut with a distress typically reserved for situations that involve a hell of a lot more legs; potentially segmented body parts. "What do you mean, our hou-- hou-- How long?"

"For as long as we can." Ideally, forever. If Sam doesn't lose his mind first. If Dean doesn't explode; he's looking abnormally pale today. Red-rimmed. Sam is only half an expert, but Dean looks a lot like two hundred and nine days of isolating fear.

"No. No." 

Sam watches the cogs spin behind his brothers eyes. Dean licks his lips, furrows his brow. The cogs spin and spin and catch on nothing. 

This is a special kind of cruelty.

"I--" Sam says.

Dean rustles through Dad's journal, like he's looking for the How To on urban living in Florida (A/C not included). "--day is it?" he says around the pen cap in his mouth.

"Wednesday. Listen Dean, I--"

Dean thumbs back a page, brow furrowed. "So yesterday was Tuesday?"

"That's generally how it works, yeah."

Dean crosses something out. Thumbs back further, then stops. "Something's wrong."

"Anterograde amnesia, Dean."

Dean shakes his head. "Something's _wrong._ "

"We're fine."

"Did we finish the hunt?"

There's a lump at the back of Sam's throat. "No." And before Dean has time to react--"But we will."

"Now?"

"Tomorrow."

Dean licks his lips, gnaws at them. "We gotta do this now, Sam. There's something wrong; I can't-- I don't remember--"

Sam reaches out to touch him, but stops. It doesn't seem right. "I know, Dean. _Tomorrow_ , I promise. Let me see that."

 

\--

 

Dean wouldn't go hiking on purpose. In the valley of the shadow of death, Sam amends, though probably normal hiking too. Not in Florida. It takes Sam some time to run through all of his euphemisms.

Dean would never kill himself. He (thinks he) has a responsibility to Sam, and he'd never break that. Not Sam's brother. But it's not like he's gonna die on accident, either; accidents only happen to strangers. What Sam's afraid of are loopholes. He knows them well; and both he and Dean are master class.

Sam cannot remember the sound of his father's voice, the day he died, the same way he cannot remember Jess's poem. The same way he cannot remember whether Dean was any different, the night he came to Stanford. The night Sam woke in Cold Oak. Sam doesn't think so, because Dean is Dean will always be Dean, but maybe that's been the problem all along. Maybe Dean's a walking red flag, and no one's ever known him any other way.

"Sam," John says, in Sam's best approximation of his voice. "Look after your brother." Sam frowns, because the order means next to nothing. There is no magic in it, no binding contract. He knows then that he will never understand his brother.

 

Sam wakes to he grinning face of the tiger on the ceiling, mint-green in tooth and claw. There will be no blood today. He follows the crackle of paint and plaster, and wonders what Dean could possibly see up there, instead.

In seventeen minutes, the alarm clock will blare. It's the same damn song every time, and Sam still doesn't know all the lyrics.

He gets up, thinking about heat. He ignores his shoes. Instead, he casts an arm beneath Dean's cot and comes up with the journal. sAD POeTry in Dean's handwriting, scrawled across the topmost margin like an afterthought. Then,

WEDNESDAY 

WEDNESDAY 

WEDNESDAY

WD

 

\--

 

 **210.** Life is very short. Two hundred and ten days ago, Dean had just shy of ninety days to live. This puts Sam's winnings at approximately 48,000 guitar solos, 210 tigers, 72 Wednesdays, 52 sad poems, 34 flamingo jokes, 7 polar bears, 4 shoelaces, 3 panic attacks, and one shitty apartment. And Dean.

Sam sinks against the bedroom door, locked. He draws his legs in, grips his wrists to form a ring around his knees. His fingers turn bloated pink and leave cold white fingerprints beneath them. When he releases his pressure, the blood flows too slowly back. It's been a long damn year.

"Sam," rasps Dean, from the other side of the door. "Unlock the damn door." 

"Sam--"

"Sammy."

 

"Broward County, Florida," Sam supplies, in answer to his name. He feels very small. But he knows this song.

 

Life is as long as Sam wants it to be.


End file.
